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Rabbinic Insights: History of The Temples
San Diego Jewish Times, December 22, 2005
By Rabbi Wayne Dosick
A
brief history of Judaisms holy Temples:
The first
Holy Temple was built in Jerusalem by King Solomon, and dedicated in
approximately 950 BCE. Through the split of the kingdoms, the age of the
prophets, the defeat of the northern kingdom of Israel, and the Deuteronomic
reformation, that Temple stood, until it was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586
BCE, and its worshippers sent into exile.
In
approximately 538 BCE, Persia defeated Babylonia, and my enemy's enemy
becomes my friend," so the Jews were permitted to return from exile (many
stayed in the relative comfort and easy assimilation of Babylonia) and the Holy
Temple was rebuilt by approximately 520 BCE.
This second Holy Temple is the one that is central to the Chanukah
story, when Antiochus of Syria, representing the Greeks, imposed a series of
political and religious restrictions on the people. Eventually, the Syrian
forces took the Holy Temple, desecrated it from its sacred Jewish purpose, and
used it for pagan worship. In 168-165 BCE the Maccabees leading the first
military uprising for religious freedom in the history of the world, recaptured
and rededicated the Holy Temple, later resulting in the establishment of the
celebratory festival of Chanukah.
This
rededicated second Holy Temple remained the central place of Jewish worship in
the Land of Israel, during the Hasmonean Dynasty the Second Jewish
Commonwealth, led by the Maccabees and their descendants. Internal strife led to
the invitation to Rome to govern Israel, and in 37 BCE, the rule of Herod began.
In 70 CE, Israel was overrun by the Romans, this second Holy Temple was
destroyed (leaving only the remnant of Herod's western outside retaining wall,
which was to become known as the "Western Wall" or the "Wailing
Wall") and the Jews were sent into an exile that would last for some 1900
years, until 1948 CE, when the Third Jewish Commonwealth, the modern State of
Israel, was born.
With
the destruction of this second Holy Temple, and the end to sacrificial worship,
the synagogue which had its theological roots in the first exile grew
up. The synagogue took the place of the Temple; prayers with words took the
place of animal and agricultural sacrifice; and the scholar-rabbi took the place
of the cultic-priest. The name "synagogue," a Greek word meaning
"place of assembly" indicates the institution' s origins in
Greco-Roman times. In Hebrew, the synagogue was given three names, which reflect
its three-fold purpose Beit Tefilah,
a House of Prayer; Beit Midrash, a
House of Study; and Beit Knesset, a
House of Assembly. This institution was never called a Temple, because, in the
Jewish mind, there was only one Temple the Holy Temple in Jerusalem
which could never be replaced by the substitute-synagogue. The Jewish longing
was always for return and rebuilding.
Still,
for these almost 2,000 years, wherever Jews have sojourned and lived, the
synagogue has served the Jewish people as its central address. Sometimes, the
building that houses the synagogue has been elaborate and beautiful. Most of the
time, the synagogue functioned in small, plain rooms and buildings. The physical
setting never seemed to matter, because as Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel zt"l taught, Jews have never built in space, but rather, in
time. Shabbas is Shabbas, whatever the place, whatever the setting. That Jews
gathered in the synagogue to learn God's word, to encounter God's will, and to
praise God's works is all that mattered. And yet three times a day pious
Jews have prayed for return from exile, for reestablishment of Jewish
independence in the Jewish land, and for a rebuilding of the Holy Temple.
In
the mid-1800s, with the birth and growth of Reform Judaism in Europe, some of
these Jewish sensibilities changed. For these early reformers, and their
counterparts who came to America, the longing for return faded. They felt as if
they were equal citizens of the lands in which they lived (how tragically wrong
the German and Eastern European Jews proved to be!) and that a return to Zion
was not in their priorities. They were pleased with their local synagogues,
which they began to call Temples, to indicate their feelings that the synagogue
had indeed, replaced the Holy Temple, and that there was no desire to rebuild
Jerusalem's Holy Temple, or to reinstitute animal sacrifice.
The
Jews that came to America between 1820 and 1900 were central European Jews who
brought Reform Judaism with them, and easily called their
newly-established-on-American-soil synagogues "Temples." To this day,
well more than half the Reform synagogues in America (and a goodly number of
Conservative synagogues) are called Temple. When the Orthodox Eastern European
Jews flocked to America between 1880 and 1920, these Yiddish-speakers often
called the synagogue shul meaning "school," for the learning (especially
for children) and worship took place in the same space.
In
contemporary times, many Jews who travel throughout America and the world often
visit the local synagogues. We go to get a small history and flavor of the
community, to admire the building and its decor, to experience different forms
of worship.
Recently,
Ellen
and I were on the Lower East Side of New York, the place where millions of
Jewish immigrants to America spent their first days and years. In the late 1800s
and early 1900s, there were scores of synagogues, kosher butchers, mikvahs,
schools, and other institutions of Jewish life in this tiny area of land and
tenement buildings.
Beginning some 150 years ago, one of the great synagogues there was Beis Midrash
HaGadol. It is not clear if its building (located on Norfolk St. one block
east of Essex, and two blocks south of Delancey) was built originally as a
synagogue, or had been a church that the synagogue pun intended
"converted." But, what is clear is that in the teens and '20s and
'30s, well more than 2,000 worshippers gathered every Shabbas morning and
more on the Shabbas when the prayer for the coming new month was chanted by the
cantor to daven.
From
approximately 1948 until he died just a few years ago, the rabbi of Beis Midrash
HaGadol was the great, renowned, and revered Rabbi Ephraim Oshry zt"l.
Rabbi Oshry is well-known as the Rav of the Kovno Ghetto, where he rendered
decisions of Jewish law brought to him by the residents of the Nazi-ravaged
city. His book, Responsa from the
Holocaust, bears witness to the power of faith to survive in the most dire
of circumstances, for the questions alone bear witness to the spiritual glory of
the Jewish people who would not be broken by the savage enemy. Can you imagine
having this brave, wise man of faith as your rabbi and spiritual guide at Beis
Midrash HaGadol? What a celebration of spirit!
Beis
Midrash HaGadol has fallen into great disrepair. The sanctuary, which once
housed the thousands of worshippers, was severely damaged by fire, and without
the money for its repair, sits unused. The worship space itself is now in the
basement, a sparse but lovely place.
Yet, with the mass exodus of Jews from the Lower East Side, there are very few
who still come there to worship. We were told that on Shabbas morning, the minyan
is made up of no more than 20 or 30 hearty souls who still live in and around
the area, but that on Friday evening especially in the cold and dark of
winter it is often difficult to get a minyan.
So,
on that Friday night, we stayed on the Lower East Side to help make up the minyan
at Beis Midrash HaGadol. Ellen was the only woman there, and was asked to sit
behind the heavy curtain metchitzah
the separation between men and woman at Orthodox worship. In the end, there
were only 14 men who came a minyan
to be sure, bur merely a ghost of minyanim
past. Still, this holy synagogue has a quorum of 10 who come to gather and to
pray. Numbers do not matter as much as spirit. And, surely, there is still great
spirit in that once and still great shul.
The
folks there did not know quite what to make of me. I was not dressed like them.
I was probably going to violate the laws of Shabbas as they live them, because,
they assumed correctly, that it was too far and too cold to walk all the way
back to mid-town. I did not identify myself as a rabbi, because I did not want
to get into a discussion of varieties of Judaism; I was just there to help make
the minyan and daven. But, my
''cover was blown" when the last Jewish bookseller remaining on the Lower
East Side walked in, recognized me, and called out, "Look who's here
Rabbi Dosick, author of Living Judaism.
Shalom alechim, Rabbi." Now, they really didn't know what to make of me, a
liberal rabbi, an author of a well-known Jewish book, coming to daven
in their very Orthodox shul. And, once the service began, and they saw that I
really can daven, they were very confused hospitable but confused.
But,
I wasn't confused at all. Actually, I was very moved and very happy. For,
regardless of our differing theologies and practices, I felt right at home and
very comfortable with them. and, eventually, they with me. For I came to
pray to God, in the midst of fellow Jews, in a synagogue, that is a worthy
inheritor of the Holy Temples in Jerusalem. I came to be in the place and for
the purpose where Jews have come to gather, to pray, and to learn for these
2,000 years.
And
that, after all, is the freedom of religion for which the Maccabees fought and
prevailed.
Happy
Chanukah, my friends. A very happy Chanukah.
Rabbi Wayne Dosick, Ph.D., the spiritual guide of the Elijah
Minyan, an adjunct professor at the University of San Diego and the Director of
the 17: Spiritually Healing Children's Emotional Wounds. He is the
award-winning author of six critically acclaimed books, including Golden
Rules; Living Judaism; and Soul Judaism: Dancing with God into a New Era.